Playwright and performer Katie Honan introduces her play How To Fall Flat On Your Face, which comes to Dublin's Project Arts Centre this month.
I have always had a fear of falling flat on my face, but never thought it would literally happen.
I've definitely fallen many times in my life — I think most of us have experienced this feeling metaphorically — but when this happened to me physically almost four years ago now, it was a fall which ignited a healing process and internal change.
I am an actor and writer from Waterford, a city I am proud to be from with brilliant characters, and a buzzing creative scene. My acting career started at the age of eight, performing in my first play with Little Red Kettle Theatre Company at Garter Lane Arts Centre. This was a summer project where a group of fifty kids (the poor directors) were chosen to devise a new play and then we’d hit the stage!
As an adult, I went on to train in The Lir Academy in Dublin, and was part of the inaugural year. We were pushed, challenged, and encouraged to grow by world class teachers. Some tough auld days, but an inspiring three years where we learned so much.
'I found I could only accept my external by unravelling my internal hurt'.
I spent most of my acting career living and working in Dublin, until I decided to make a move to London. I had just come out of a ten year relationship and needed a fresh start. I told all my friends before heading off "if I go and fall flat on my face, it’s fine" — trying to cushion the blow and save myself embarrassment should I fail my fresh start.
Within two months of living in London I fell flat on my face.
I was in a friend’s, took a turn and fell at an angle where all the impact went on my face. Suddenly, I was in a hospital waiting area in a city that was not my own. I was swollen, cut, bruised and broken. I was embarrassed by my appearance and terrified about what would be next.
Waiting to heal, I felt trapped in a body and with a face that was not my own. My nose was reset, but I could not get past that it now poked in a different direction.
Gradually I came to accept the new curve in my nose and scar on my lip which was left. I found I could only accept my external by unravelling my internal hurt.
The experience offered space for me to reflect on how a person can chase perfection in their life, leading me to write my debut play, a one-woman show entitled How To Fall Flat On Your Face. A funny and dark deep dive into how sweating the small stuff can escalate. Anna is the play’s leading character, and her story is fictional but inspired by falling flat on my own face.
With support from Waterford County Council and the Arts Council, the play premiered in Garter Lane Arts Centre (where it all began) last year, and rolling on from its success there, the show is now set to hit Dublin’s Project Arts Centre.
How To Fall Flat On Your Face is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin from November 7th – 18th - find out more here.
